Calvin Prof To Speak About Mars Exploration

February 2, 2004 == MEDIA ADVISORY

Calvin College professor of engineering Matthew Kuperus Heun will give a seminar on Wednesday, February 4 at 3:30 at Calvin (in Science Building 010) about attempts to explore Mars.

The talk is called "Between Satellites and Rovers: Mars Exploration from Atmospheric Platforms."

Says Professor Heun: "To date, Mars has been studied exclusively from orbital and surface locations, yielding a wealth of scientific data about the red planet. However, there have been several, less-publicized, attempts to develop observation platforms that offer both "birds-eye" view of the planet, like satellites, and scientifically-driven mobility, like rovers. These alternative atmospheric platforms include airplanes, gliders, balloons, and airships. The political; and technical challenges of designing atmospheric platforms as well as the strengths and weaknesses of each proposed approach will be discussed. And, details of a previous Mars balloon development effort will be presented."

Heun, a Portage native and Calvin graduate, worked for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory prior to coming to Calvin. Among his projects there was work on "aerobots" * exploration vehicles capable of carrying out scientific planetary study.

The concept behind the aerobot, says Heun, is a gondola anchored below a balloon or blimp filled with a gas * a refrigerant, for example * which is capable of changing between liquid and gas. This ability allows the aerobot to float kilometers up into the atmosphere of a planet to do higher-altitude observations, which were typically the domain of satellites. But what makes the aerobot so useful is that the same device can be made to descend to the ground level of a planet like Mars or Venus to do rock and soil analyses, an area which has always been the sole domain of planetary rovers.

"You can do a lot more detailed investigations and you have a whole lot more mobility than with a rover," says Heun. "It combines the advantages of satellites and rovers."

For a pic and contact information see http://engr.calvin.edu/Faculty/heun/index.html

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Received on Fri Jan 30 15:26:09 2004